In Paisley Protestant Country, Support for Joint Ulster Rule

By EAMONN QUINN; Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London.

Published: March 28, 2007

It is known as the heart of Paisley Protestant country, the town that started the long political career of the Rev. Ian Paisley, the hard-line Northern Ireland Protestant leader once nicknamed ''Dr. No.''

But a day after Mr. Paisley did the once-unthinkable by agreeing with his Catholic republican archenemy Gerry Adams to form a joint administration for the province, many shoppers and workers in Ballymena, a busy market town 27 miles northwest of Belfast, said their leader had done the right thing by finally saying ''Yes.''

That set them apart from a high-profile member of Mr. Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, Jim Allister, who quit the party on Tuesday over Mr. Paisley's decision.

Mr. Paisley, 80, built a career spanning six decades on rejecting any form of self-rule in Northern Ireland with Catholic nationalists who sought a united Ireland. Starting in Ballymena, he honed his skills as a preacher and orator, denouncing Catholicism as ''popery'' and ''superstition.''

But the agreement reached Monday, if carried out, will mean that Britain will formally hand back responsibility for running many of Northern Ireland's internal affairs to an administration composed of Protestants and Roman Catholics. Mr. Paisley will serve as first minister and Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, will be deputy first minister, a post with equal power.

Carrying packages to a car park near the main street here, Kathleen Coulter, a Ballymena resident and supporter of Mr. Paisley for the past 50 years, said she had been surprised by the news that he and Mr. Adams would form a local government for Northern Ireland on May 8.

''I didn't think Dr. Paisley and Gerry Adams would do it,'' she said, but added that after years of conflict, it was the right time for Mr. Paisley to make a deal.

Residents here say they believe that local elections three weeks ago gave Mr. Paisley the confidence to defy dissent in the party he co-founded 35 years ago. The vote showed that Mr. Paisley was the undisputed leader of Protestants who seek to maintain the British link in Northern Ireland.

Ballymena enjoys prosperity from its tobacco and poultry processing activities and a long established bus-building business. House prices are soaring, and the local tourist officer, Christine Butler, says more visitors are coming.

Extra money and the relative peace of the past nine years since the end of most of the politically motivated violence in Northern Ireland came as a boost to Ballymena.

That is not to say the town is without sectarian strains. Last year, in a high-profile case, a Catholic teenager, Michael McIlveen, died after being beaten near the town's center. More than 1,000 people across the religious divide attended his funeral.

Despite the strains, the townspeople seem ready to support the power-sharing agreement.

Jim McDowell, a Protestant who works in a clothing and furnishings shop, said he was ready for change. ''I was not happy with what happened during the Troubles, but we must move on,'' he said, referring to three decades of sectarian strife that claimed at least 3,720 lives.

While most of those interviewed appeared to share his view of Mr. Paisley's move, they differed on what they believed had motivated him to finally make the historic deal. Mr. McDowell said Mr. Paisley did it, in the end, under pressure from the British government.

Others said they believed just the opposite: that Mr. Paisley moved from strength, seeing the chance to be in charge and grabbing it.

That was the view of an 83-year-old Protestant unionist voter, who wished to be identified only by his first name, Gordon, and who said he had known Mr. Paisley since they attended Ballymena Model School in the 1930s.

''The reason he went into it is to be the boss of it,'' he said, adding that he feared that Mr. Paisley and Mr. Adams would not be able to work together.

Richard English, a professor of politics at Queen's University in Belfast and the author of a history of the Irish Republican Army, said in an interview on the telephone that he believed that Mr. Paisley had been motivated, in part, by an acceptance that his dream from the 1960s -- to have Protestants rule on their own -- would not be fulfilled.

Sinn Fein, he said, also had given up its long-held goal of expelling the British by force.

''Both were based on an unrealistic notion of politics,'' Mr. English said. ''Neither of these positions could really expect to win the day and carry people with them,'' he said. Nonetheless, it had taken a ''long 40 years'' to forge that recognition.

But Mr. English also shares Gordon's view on what finally moved the seemingly immovable unionist leader. He said Mr. Paisley had fulfilled an ambition to emerge as the dominant force after painstaking negotiations during which the I.R.A. renounced violence and promised to disarm, allowing him to depict himself as the victor.

''From his point of view, he can say that for someone who was almost a minority voice, he is the dominant figure,'' Mr. English said. ''He will be the prime minister at his death and he will feel his career has been vindicated. Once the I.R.A. bent the knee, he was prepared to sit down with them.''

Map of Northern Ireland highlighting Ballymena: Ballymena is the town that started the political career of Ian Paisley.